Brands Lose Competitive Edge by Rushing AI Creative Work
Nearly half of Australian small and medium-sized businesses use AI for marketing and branding, yet only 43 per cent feel confident releasing AI-only creative work to market. That gap between adoption and confidence points to a deeper problem: brands are using AI without strategy.
Jason Ross, CEO of generative AI experience agency Time Under Tension, describes the issue as "lazy prompting" - giving AI minimal instructions and expecting polished, original work in return.
"A lazy prompt is when you haven't done all of those things and you've just asked it," Ross said. "If you are staying in ChatGPT, asking for an idea, and then an image, don't be surprised when everything starts to look the same."
Why Generic AI Output Looks Generic
Large language models are trained on the average of the internet. They naturally produce average outputs. When asked to summarize documents, they excel. When asked to create something original, their version of good is usually the average of everything they've already seen.
Every burger shop typing "young family eating a burger, smiling, enjoying themselves" ends up with something that looks nearly identical. That's not a tool limitation. That's the result of minimal effort.
The industry now has a term for this: AI slop. Low-effort, generic AI-generated content that lacks originality or human oversight.
Context Is Where Human Work Begins
The biggest mistake brands make is failing to provide enough context. Asking AI to write copy without information about your brand, products, or past campaigns means it might repeat last week's work.
"The more context you can give an AI, the better job it can do for you," Ross said. "That's actually where the human effort comes in."
Many brands unknowingly outsource strategic thinking to the AI itself, then become frustrated when outputs lack authenticity. They're treating the tool as a one-stop creative engine rather than a tool that requires direction.
Relying on a single platform like ChatGPT for everything also limits what's possible. Better workflows use specialized creative tools, generating 100 different briefs to see 100 different outputs, then refining the strongest ones. That selection and refinement process is where differentiation happens.
The Real Advantage Is How You Use It
Brands succeeding with AI aren't necessarily the ones with the most tools. They're the ones putting the most thought into how they use them.
Ross calls this "AI fluency" - understanding how to guide AI properly, structure workflows, and refine outputs beyond generic first drafts. It's about making the AI work harder for your brand, not making the AI do the work for you.
Brands relying on quick prompts risk becoming indistinguishable from competitors. If everyone stays in the same place and does the same thing, everything starts to sound the same.
"Creativity takes time," Ross said. "You can't be creative in two seconds."
For creatives, the skill now is not learning which buttons to press. It's learning how to use these tools as part of a deliberate, strategic process. That requires effort. It always has.
Prompt Engineering and AI for Creatives resources can help teams build these skills.
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